Put away your purse & become debt-averse

scandimore

Hi Foxgloves. It must be really gratifying to see the house coming together after planning the improvements. I especially like the sound of that pantry! We too have a 1930s house and currently awaiting some decorator quotes as well - we've always done our own decorating but got to the point now where we want that nicer finish on the crumbly walls and I would quite like a job to be fully finished within an acceptable time frame for once there is a lot to do! Hopefully a pantry one day
We are having the tuna wedge melt for tea tonight- another Foxgloves recommendation, sounds good for a quick easy tea, not too expensive either as you say, food costs have gone up a lot. We've reduced our bill down a bit but it's still higher than it should be. I have in the last few weeks joined a waste not want not initiative where we pay £3 a week for a share of food which would be on its way to landfill which makes up a few handy extras.
 I can't work out why most of it would be thrown out as it's in date and mostly long life stuff e.g. tins. The fresh fruit and veg is perfectly fine too. I was so shocked to learn just how much food gets thrown away in this country, we used to be pretty bad in this regard too, so it's something which we are constantly trying to improve on. Hope you manage to do your meal plan for next week, look forward to hearing your updates.

Sun_Addict

I noticed prices creeping up last year when folks were panic buying and happy to pay over the odds. Trouble is they don’t come back down again once they realise people are prepared to pay the higher price. They’ve got two excuses now - Covid and Brexit 🤔

Another one here who now pays someone else to do the painting. We used to do our own but now Mr SA is disabled it’s difficult with it just being me, especially as decorating isn’t my forte.

foxgloves

Hi Scandimore, I love that tuna thing. It's tasty, reasonably healthy & inexpensive. Yes, re decorating, we just felt the time had come where we had to put some money into getting a one-off professional job done. You can patch up old dodgy walls for so long, but we could no longer get the finish, so we decided to add it to our refurb plans. I must say he's done a cracking job of the man-cave. All the cruddy much-overpainted wallpaper came off & he lined the walls with something called 'wallrock'.... we'd never heard of it, but it is a thick smooth paper which has certainly covered up a lot of imperfections. We have requested it for all the rooms we are having done, plus the stairwell. It has overpainted beautifully & as he even filled & sanded the joins, you can't really even tell that the room is papered. Yes, it's going to take a wodge of our home improvements budget, but it is a one-off, to get the walls to a high standard so we can make a better job of painting them in future, if that makes sense. The rooms we've chosen were well ready for doing.
F 

foxgloves

Evening Frugalistas,
Pleasant day, which has felt almost normal! Mr F off work today so I drove us to a historic country park & we really enjoyed a waterside walk. Not many people there, which was even better.
Still sunny this afternoon so did some planting at the back of one of the big borders..... added a dozen self-sown foxgloves which I'd potted up for filling gaps, plus a sweet rocket which self-seed quite prolifically, but are useful for providing both height, soft colour & nectar. Also made a batch of garlic flatbreads.
Not a no-spend day, as I spent £21 (2 good-sized heucherellas plus treated us both to coffee & a shared cake) but I used my March 'Personal Spends' money, meaning that my purchases were budget-neutral.
It could have been a good deal spendier as by 9am, I'd talked myself into hiring a skip, but by 9.25, I'd totally talked myself out of it!
Only piano practice to do, then bum-on-sofa time.
F x
P. S I should add that buying just one little cake to share was not tightwaddery on my part.... more a concern that Weigh-Day will soon be hoving into view & I did not want a whole cake teleporting itself as if by magic to my already overly ample midsection!

foxgloves

Oh my days, where has the time gone today? There has been a secret time robber at large, that's for sure. Have been quite productive though: Cleaned all of downstairs, ordered a new light-pull (getting ready for main bedroom refurb), booked smart meter installation, skyped my sister over coffee & knitting, baked a sourdough loaf, potted up cucumber seedlings & moved all remaining veggie plant babies to greenhouse under bottle cloches, forked over small bed & planted out perpetual spinach plants & contacted decorator to ask if he can add fitting new roller blind to list of jobs for next room.
Mr F fetching grocery shopping on way home for work & picking up click & collect order at the same time. Tomorrow is my Big Budget Day so I did just tidy up a spreadsheet today, so as to be ready & primed for all my number crunching. 
Hope everyone staying safe & well. 
F x

savingmore

I am quite exhausted reading about your day, I bet you felt a sense of achievement at the end of the day.   Happy number crunching tomorrow 😜

foxgloves

Hello Diary Friends,
I seem to have been superglued to my desk today. It's my regular monthly Big Budget Day, but it's also end of the financial year, so there were lots of new payment amounts to enter on my spreadsheet & for some reason lots of extra filing. Anyway, I reconciled March's budget, & if we don't spend more than £21 on fresh fruit & veg tomorrow, we will come in on budget for groceries. I set April's budget & instantly could see that there would be a lot less for that extra sweep into savings.....mainly, I think due to this being the month where the water rates & Council Tax payments both resume. I decided to crack on with getting a rebate from our tentacled energy provider & this process turned out to be very easy. I clicked a link (which suggested I might like to have some money paid back into my account.....well, that was a 'yes') & that took me to a figure their algorithm considers to be a sensible balance for our account atm based our use, so that meant around a £158 rebate. I am just waiting for them to confirm this, & when it arrives in our account, I will sort out an ISA payment. I haven't paid anything into our Savings Pots this time. I may top a couple of them up a little at the same time as I decide what to add to the ISA, but I paid off a few items off 'just for points' credits cards in lieu of paying the relevant pots, so I don't feel I have neglected them. It does sometimes feel a bit daft paying the Pots their allotted amount for the month, then almost immediately transferring the funds back out again to pay for various items.
Anyway, that is the budget done for the month ahead & as always, I do feel better for having the knowledge that things are looking ok. I did wonder if maybe having access to our home improvements fund is causing a little bit of complacency to set in on the budgeting front.....I don't have time to explain these ponderings atm, as I need to go & cover up all my greenhouse veggie babies before the temperature drops too much......but I've mentioned it to Mr F & I am going to keep working it through in my head.
Oh, I've also written a few Easter cards & wrapped the Easter choc I bought (just family gifts as we shan't see each other this Easter........again) so I can get those posted tomorrow morning when we're in town. But most of the day, I have been number crunching & being virtuosic over doing my admin & filing pile. Ready for an evening of doing absolutely anything else now!
Cheers all,
F x 

crazy_cat_lady

Just catching up on your diary foxgloves and I'm tired just reading everything you've been up to this past week or so. I wish I could get as much done as you do, but alas I'm back to being just tired all of the time... 

HairyHandofDartmoor

You've had a busy week Foxgloves 👏. I need to do some number crunching to take account of new price rises but it will have to wait for the Easter holidays as I can't face doing it at the weekend.

Your garden must be starting to look good now that spring is officially here 🌹🌻🌷. I'm so thankful to get winter behind us and the weather does seem more springlike now. What's flowering in your garden at the moment? I've heard the weather should be good next week, in Devon at least, so hopefully you can enjoy coffee by your pond 🙂.

foxgloves

CCL - Well, I do sometimes feel tired (I'm a good bit more ancient than your good self!) but not as cripplingly shattered as I used to be in my peri-menopausal years, many of which also coincided with appalling insomnia. I do like to keep busy & to do things. There is nothing more likely to start my mood spiralling downwards than sitting around doing nothing. I have to knit through TV or film watching, as I get fidgetty if I'm just sitting. I think it's just how I'm made. I genuinely enjoy pottering around doing this & that, whether I am indoors or out in the garden........which is just as well, as I loathe & refuse all formal exercise settings/activity, so it helps with my step count & general activity levels too,
F x
HHoD - I did sit by the pond with my book for just 20 mins last week, but it was too chilly so I went indoors. I think it should soon start to get warmer though. To answer your question about what's flowering in my garden - well, there are lots of different types of daffodils & narcissus because each year, I buy enough to fill a couple of tubs out the back & the two by the front door, then I tip them out afterwards & plant them in the borders for future years, so there are several different ones out there now, for a nice mix of colour. I quite like the ones called 'Ice follies'. They are quite big & a very pale yellow. The 3 clumps I have of my Mum's winter-flowering iris are all flowering - in fact, the original clump has about 7 flowers on it! I also have 3 different hellebores in flower, including one I brought from Mum's garden. The pulmonaria are just starting to come into flower but are getting attention from naughty beaks yet again - maybe the leaves make soft nest linings, I don't know. I did have a cowslip & 3 lovely new primulas flowering but the sparrows pecked off the flowers then just spat them onto the soil. They had to go without their mealworms for a day because of their bad behaviour. The flowering currant is looking quite pretty too & we have a few chionadoxia bulbs flowering & a double celandine (another of Mum's plants). So it is starting to look quite colourful & cheery. I always think our garden looks best in May & June, as it is cottage-garden style really. I never find that the high summer perennials do quite as well for me.
I do think that gardening helps us to think about moving forward & everything having a season, & I like that.
F x